The Apache Project is a collaborative software development effort aimed at creating a robust,
commercial-grade, featureful, and freely-available source code implementation of an HTTP (Web)
server. The project is jointly managed by a group of volunteers located around the world, using
the Internet and the Web to communicate, plan, and develop the server and its related documentation.
These volunteers are known as the Apache Group. In addition, hundreds of users have contributed
ideas, code, and documentation to the project. This file is intended to briefly describe the history
of the Apache Group, recognize the many contributors, and explain how you can join the fun too.

In February of 1995, the most popular server software on the Web was the public domain HTTP
daemon developed by Rob McCool at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University
of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. However, development of that httpd had stalled after Rob left NCSA
in mid-1994, and many webmasters had developed their own extensions and bug fixes that were in
need of a common distribution. A small group of these webmasters, contacted via private e-mail,
gathered together for the purpose of coordinating their changes (in the form of "patches"). Brian
Behlendorf and Cliff Skolnick put together a mailing list, shared information space, and logins for the
core developers on a machine in the California Bay Area, with bandwidth and diskspace donated by
HotWired and Organic Online. By the end of February, eight core contributors formed the foundation
of the original Apache Group.